oklahoma joe bronco barrel half assembly pain in the booty !

[JeffB1961]

my bronco was delivered yesterday 2 days early :) . but the welded tabs/bolts to connect the halves didn't want to line up good with the tabs/nuts ! made a wedge with a few boards to to nudge it , no go even put some gorilla force on it with the better half trying to start the bolt , still no go ! but that's a good thing because it shows the strength of the steel . i had to resort to taking the 5 bolts out and using a drill bit to shave the outside of all the holes in the lower half just a hair and i finally got al the bolts in :) . i shaved very little off each one less than 1/16 and it still took a little prying and some choice words but i didn't want to shave any more than necessary to keep from causing leaks . there is a very thin gasket material and OJ provided washers for the bolts on the underside . gonna go to wally shortly and get some cheap charcoal and canola oil spray to season it . just thought i'd give a heads up incase someone else has the same issue and they're looking for a work around .
take care , jeff

 

[kruizer]

Mine went together like a breeze. Must have been a manufacturing defect.

 

[JeffB1961]

well ..... i un-defected it ;) i'm seasoning it now with spray canola oil . probally won't be able to cook on it till thur/fri but i'm really looking forward to it . took a pork butt out the freezer a little bit ago

 

[kruizer]

That is the first thing I did on mine and it was marvelous.

 

[SmokinAl]

Well I guess you can say you helped build your own smoker!
Al

 

[JeffB1961]

or i did some custom modifications , lol . it was a PITA for about a hour , but it's all good now :) .

did my seasoning yesterday with a full basket of $6 wally world charcoal and the slivers from some western hickory "chunks" . started about 3 PM with the dials wide open and B4 4 PM it hit 480ish on it's thermometer . turned the dials back to 2 1/2 each and it settled into 400ish so i left it there till a little after 5 and turned the dials back to 1 1/2 and 2 and it settled down to a little under 300 and it stayed there till i called it a night at 11 . had to tinkle about 2:30AM and it was down to 190ish . open the dials all the way and at 7 this morning the temp gauge was all the way down and the bronco was barely warm with about a dozen little chunks or charcoal left when i dumped the ashes . it seems this is gonna be perfect for overnight low&slow cooks with no babysitting which is exactly what i wanted . we got a longhorn combo last sept and the offset side does great pork butts and stuff , but babysitting the stick burner isn't something i enjoy as consistently as i thought i would .... and i needed/wanted more cooking capacity . the bronco cover and inkbird 6 probe are supposed to be delivered tomorrow and the pork butt will be put on friday or saturday evening . good times :)
take care , jeff